


The Worst Laid Plans

by Omnicat



Series: Everything Is A River In Egypt And Nothing Hurts [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Actor Recasting, Alien Civilizations, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Frigga Allmother, Frigga Lives, Gen, Happy Ending, Id Fic, Infinity Gems, Jane Foster Appreciation, Loki Gets Off Easy, Loki Gets a Hug, Odin's A+ Parenting, Put On A Bus, Queen Outranks King, Reconciliation, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:58:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnicat/pseuds/Omnicat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Did you think I would not know your voice from any throat? My own boy?” // “I had meant only to deceive the elves while I got the mortal and myself to safety, but... well, opportunity arose, so I improvised.”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>TDW fix-it fic, simple as that. Retconning Odin's A+ Parenting and Frigga's fate because I don't want to live with a headcanon wherein those things exist, as well as a few other minor quibbles because I saw an opportunity to have fun while doing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Odin

**Author's Note:**

> Some pretty awful things happened in _Thor: The Dark World_ , and much as we all undoubtedly love our angst, no fannish experience is complete without the occasional bout of staunch denial. So here you go. ;)

“Forgive me, my liege. I’ve returned from the dark world with news.”

“Thor?”

He raised his eyes. Odin’s face was inscrutable. “There was no sign of Thor, or the weapon. But...”

He waited a beat.

“What?” Still Odin’s expression revealed nothing. The old man might as well be looking through him.

“I found a body.”

“Loki,” Odin whispered, standing very, very still.

No crack, no tremor in his voice. Not a muscle twitched or loosened. Of course not. Of course not. He had known; now he had proof.

 _More_ proof. The final proof.

“Loki,” Odin repeated, voice suddenly haggard. He took a staggering step toward him.

What?

“My lord?” he asked, tensing up, resisting the urge to flinch back, maintain their distance.

“Loki. My son. My son,” Odin babbled as he unsteadily descended the steps.

 _No,_ he wanted to say. _No, stop this!_ he wanted to scream. “My lord, are you well?”

Gungnir slipped from Odin’s hand and clattered to the floor. It did not thunder with command, it rang like a cry, and Odin didn’t spare it a glance but _he_ could not tear his eyes, wide and incredulous, away from it.

“Loki,” Odin breathed, and suddenly his weathered hands cupped his face, _both_ hands, and the illusion shattered.

Loki’s gaze snapped to Odin’s.

“My son,” Odin said.

Loki jerked away. A heartbeat too late; Odin’s arms were already around him.

“Heimdall saw you die,” Odin rasped in his ear. “Heimdall heard you say –”

“Let me go.” Loki’s lips barely moved. “What are you doing?”

“I dared not hope for a second miracle, not now, after everything I’ve done to you, fate would not allow it –”

There was no knife in his back, no spear through his still-aching chest to finish what the elf-monster had started. One hand was tight in his hair, the other flat against his spine. The cheek pressed to his ear was warm. Wet.

“What?” he managed, the whole of his being thin and croaking along with his voice.

“Did you think I would not know your voice from any throat? My own boy?”

_I am not your boy!_

Loki tore free, summoned his dagger in a flash. There was a fierce tremor between his ribs, where the blade should have slid. “What sick game is this?”

“No game,” Odin said, hands raised to surrender, to placate, to deceive. “Only the mistakes of an old fool.”

“No.” There was a bottomless reservoir of hatred and rage within him, and Loki needed it now, but he could not find it. He was a little boy lost in the woods, and his father was calling for him. “No, you do not get to start the lies all anew.” He was a little boy lost in the woods, and his father had thrown him to the wolves. “Last time was not a _mistake_.”

“I did not think so then. I have learned better.”

“You told me to die!” he screamed, because the tears always came when he least wanted Odin to see them. “You told me you regretted every breath you’ve given me to take!”

“What Frigga told you – that a true king admits his faults – so she said to me.”

“ _Don’t you talk about my mother._ ”

Loki could not remember at what point he had stopped seeing, but suddenly he was no longer just looking.

Odin. Odin with tears streaming and bent shoulders. Odin contrite, Odin grieving, Odin hurting and broken and sorry as Loki had been above the abyss, on the black sands, Odin seeing _him_ at long last. Odin sorry. So, so sorry.

_How **dare** he._

“‘YOUR BIRTHRIGHT WAS TO DIE AS A CHILD, CAST OUT ONTO A FROZEN ROCK.’ _‘YOUR MOTHER IS THE ONLY REASON YOU’RE STILL ALIVE AND YOU WILL NEVER SEE HER AGAIN.’_ ”

Odin quailed, Odin bent, Odin crumpled. No blow of fist or blade or blast could have been more satisfying.

“I could think of nothing crueller,” Odin whispered. Ragged, eye shutting against his own shame before he looked up as if to implore. “And since that day you’ve hated me with every fibre of your being, haven’t you? There was no more conflict in you. None of that despair I saw when you let go, always wondering, always second-guessing, never sure. I could think of nothing crueller – nothing better to make you let go of me and embrace life instead. And it worked.”

“No, I...” Loki lowered the knife.

It _hadn’t_ worked. That was the worst of it. His ire would not have been so great if he had not been so hurt, if it had _really_ worked. How could he forgive a wound such as that?

 _The same way I forgave you,_ his mother’s ghost whispered in his ear. _Every time. Every single time._

Once, his father would have claimed he had Frigga’s soft heart. Frigga’s tricks, Frigga’s tongue, Frigga’s daft, unshakeable love.

“Your mother’s doings were no secret to me,” Odin revealed. “I know what you and she spoke of. I think, perhaps, she understood my plan. I _know_ she did not agree.”

“It was a terrible plan.”

“No more terrible than starting off an invasion by inviting the fury of all the realm’s mightiest defenders.”

Loki’s laugh was brittle like an old man, and Odin’s smile little more than a twitch.

Loki looked away and breathed deep. “If this is to be a new punishment I cannot stop you. But with mother gone I beg you – no games. Make it quick.”

He extended the knife, hilt flipped.

For a long moment: nothing.

At last, Odin took it. Loki began to shake all up and down his spine, but he did not look.

Then –

His head yanked back, a hand tight in his hair, the cold caress of the blade against his neck. His heart stopped.

_Shnick._

“I recall overhearing some thousand complaints on the lack of barbers down in the dungeons,” Odin murmured lightly.

Loki stumbled forward, tried to remember how to breathe.

Odin put a hand on his shoulder. “No games. No punishment. I only hope one day you can believe that. I thought it would be best to push you away. I was wrong. If you are willing, I should _try_. But it took your mother’s... it took her to make me see that.”

His voice was thick with tears. Somehow, that was all it took to make Loki’s shoulders heave.

From the sobs, he wrenched “I want – ”

_my mumma_

“I know.” The hand on his shoulder turned into an arm across his chest, pulling him into papa’s warm bulk. “I know.”

They mourned as they should.


	2. Frigga

Loki raised his voice at Thor’s retreating back. “And if I were proud of the man my son has become...”

His brother stopped and turned.

“Even that I could not say. It would speak only from my heart. Go... my son.”

Thor smiled. “Thank you, father.”

And he was gone, off to Earth, to Jane Foster and all the ideals his big heart could hold.

“No,” Loki said eventually, letting the illusion fall away. “Thank _you_.”

And all’s well that ends well.

 _Died with honour._ He had to admit it had a nice ring to it, especially since he wasn’t actually dead. It made the parts of him that weren’t still sore as Hel from getting run through feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

One of the remaining pillars beside the throne shimmered out of existence. “Is that really how I appear to you?”

“Thor seemed to buy it,” Loki said, blinking up innocently at his father. “Though perhaps I fell a bit short on the obfuscation.”

Chuckling, Odin drew up beside him on the dais. “We shall have to ensure ‘my’ straightforwardness here today is not an anomaly to be questioned. Comfortable, are you?”

“Very. I never want to stand up again.”

“That is a lie, and I should know.” He ruffled Loki’s hair. An old habit Loki had made him break in early adolescence, but just this once, he smoothed his hair back without protest. “I’ve had to sit in that blasted thing every day for the past three and a half thousand years.”

“I think I shall endure it a while longer.” Loki slouched into a more comfortable position that wasn’t actually more comfortable. It was the thought that counted. “So what’s next?”

“You have walked Midgard more recently than I, son. Tell me, how long do mortals last these days?”

“Up to a hundred years, I think, if they’re lucky.”

“And how old would you estimate Jane Foster to be now?”

Loki thought for a moment. “I haven’t the foggiest. Didn’t they used to mature at fifteen, when they lived to be fifty? Then they should be mature around thirty now, and Jane strikes me as having been grown for a while. Perhaps sixty?”

“Well, no matter. Let him have her lifetime. The foundations laid here today will settle, and when he returns his righteousness will be unshakeable, the memory of you nice and rosy, and – assuming your best behaviour in the meantime – the past two years will seem so insignificant as to be non-existent. And then we... or what is left of us... will be a happy family again at last.”

“I don’t think so,” a new voice rang out.

Loki and Odin’s heads snapped up fast enough to sprain something.

Another column – conspicuously intact while all the ones around it had been toppled, and wow, had they really not noticed that? – flashed out of existence, and there, in the fading light of the spell, stood –

“Frigga,” Odin rasped, already moving, at the same time Loki cried, “Mumma!”

Gungnir was tossed carelessly to the ground for the second time in as many days, and father nor son gave a damn, not with their arms full of _her_.

“My love, how is this possible? I held your body –”

“Mumma! Mother, mother, you _are_ my mother you’ll always be my mother, I’m so sorry –”

“Oh, I know, come here, come here, I’m sorry too.”

For all that they were bursting with questions, it took a while for Odin and Loki to calm down enough to hear the answers. (The first challenge was to stop hugging Frigga so tightly she barely had breath enough to speak.)

“I had meant only to deceive the elves while I got the mortal and myself to safety, but... well, opportunity arose, so I improvised.” she finally explained with a shrug. “It worked so well for Director Fury back on Midgard, I figured it was worth a try. The body you burned was a stray elf I slew on the way to my chambers.” She looked at her boys with a fond, impish smile. “Odin isn’t the only one who can perform real applied shapeshifting on the fly.”  
Odin and Loki exchanged glances.

“So that’s it, then?” Loki said, still puffy-eyed, and with his recently cropped hair mussed because he had stopped trying to smooth it back the fifteenth time Frigga had delightedly run her fingers through it, but more chipper than he had felt in years. “I’m not dead, you’re not dead, none of us hate or pretend-hate each other anymore, hatchets were buried –”

“Yet _you_ would chasten _us_ for letting Thor think the two of you dead, wife?” Odin finished, clearly amused.

“Feigning death is a short-term, last ditch solution. In the long term, it is nothing but cowardice. And Thor is the last of us who deserves such pain,” Frigga said. “Heimdall will stop him at the gate, we will all reunite and resolve what differences remain like responsible adults, the three of us – and I do mean _three_ of us, not three of us posing as two of us in yet another hair-brained political scheme – will arrange for the damages Asgard sustained to be restored and our defences to be reinforced, and before this week is out we will follow Thor on his vacation to Earth to see the sights, apologize to New York, and get to know our daughter-in-law. Is that clear, husband? Young man?”

“Yes, mother,” Loki said, contrite.

“And I think...” Quirking an eyebrow, she picked up Gungnir and shook it under Odin’s nose. “That _I_ will be handling _this_ for a while, hm?”

“Yes, my queen, my dearest,” Odin said, looking at her with such adoration one would think he would have agreed to give her his remaining eye if she asked.

They leaned together for a kiss, and behind their backs, Loki happily pretended to gag.


	3. Tongue-In-Cheek Fandral Bonus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All kidding aside, much love to Zachary Levi, who is a handsome devil. Enjoy!

Loki was starting to forget what life was like without the feeling of Thor’s knuckles digging into all the most sensitive points of his skull. Mild retribution, he supposed, for a broken neck, a thirty-thousand foot fall, a year and a day of needless mourning, and all the other... stuff. Still, he hoped Thor would let up on the noogie before they reached the Bifrost. Admitting his mistakes was unnatural enough, just rolling over and placidly taking punishment for them for extended periods of time might crash reality.

Thor was laughing, though, and all grumbling aside, Loki was smiling too.

“My word, is it really true then?” a voice came from somewhere ahead Loki couldn’t see because his head was stuck under Thor’s arm. “The prodigal son died and rose again, thought better of the crazed villain hairstyle, and now he is redeemed?”

“What, like it’s hard,” Loki answered automatically. “That could mean either of us.”

“’Tis true, my friend. Loki is, as the mortals would say, out on probation.” Thor let him go, only to smack him in the back so hard he staggered forward and made a noise like a dying whale. “What? Does it still hurt?”

“Sadly, I didn’t _fake_ getting run through like a shish kebab,” Loki wheezed, bent over with his arms wrapped around his chest like that would help any.

“I thought you’d been to the healers!”

“Not exactly a _healer_ ,” Loki whimpered.

“Brother, I am so –”

“It’s alright, it’s alright, you didn’t know.” Two pairs of hands helped him upright. Loki looked up at last. “Thank y– wait, you’re the fellow from the skiff.”

The man gave him an odd look. “Of course I am.”

“Who the blazes _are_ you?”

The man and Thor exchanged baffled glances. Then, in perfect unison, realisation dawned, and they smacked their respective foreheads.

“That’s right, you weren’t there. It’s me, Fandral!”

Loki stared.

“One of his bed mates, a while after you disappeared, was a sorceress from Vanaheim,” Thor explained. “She was new to Asgard, had heard nothing of Fandral’s reputation, and Fandral, relying on his reputation to do the talking for him, failed to explain his intentions when he bedded her after months of wooing. When she found out the truth, she cursed him to wear a different face for the next five years.”

“Did she break your nose too?”

Fandral grimaced.

“You know I could fix that for you, if you want.”

“Ah.” Fandral smiled dazzlingly. “But then I could no longer impress maidens with the tale of how I got it at the hands of whatever foe is in vogue on a particular evening.”

“Ah,” Loki echoed, grinning back. “Was I ever the culprit?”

Fandral faltered. “Of course not.”

An uncomfortable silence fell.

“We can no longer be friends,” Loki deadpanned.

Fandral and Thor exchanged bewildered glances.

“Well, I – I considered it, but Thor didn’t want –”

“We can no longer be brothers.”

“What?!”

“When I’m a hero you won’t glorify my good deeds, when I’m a villain you won’t demonize my bad deeds. What does man have to do to get some recognition around here?”

“Alright, alright, brother, we’ll work on that,” Thor said placatingly. “Just as long as you don’t muddle the heroic waters with villainous deeds. Deal?”

“Deal.” Loki threw his arms around Thor and Fandral’s shoulders and leaned, milking ‘I am hurting, you must carry me’ for all it was worth. “I think I shall start off my renewed career in heroism by fixing Fandral’s nose.”


	4. Things That Were Put On A Bus Bonus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sure, I know Vanir!Hogun is comics canon, but I really dig how Branagh hired Idris Elba and Asgardian crowd extras in every color of the fleshy rainbow. And I’m not saying there might be some unfortunate implications in putting one out of three characters with a non-caucasian actor on a bus as soon as they appear Because Foreigner and turning another into an animalistic monster halfway through the movie, but let’s be real: that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Fandral was still shielding his nose from Loki by the time their party of three was overtaken by Sif and Volstagg on horseback, just outside Heimdall’s observatory.

“My _word!_ ” Volstagg exclaimed as he dismounted, an all too predictable echo of Fandral’s greeting words. “So the rumours are true, then? Excellent!” He caught Loki up in a bear hug that lifted him clean off his feet. Miraculously, Loki did not expire from the pain. “My children have missed your tricks, as has my poor battle-bruised flesh. Welcome back!”

“Good,” said Sif, striding purposefully into the observatory. “If I’d had to kill you, I would have brought you back to life so I could kill you again as payback. I hate having to kill friends.”

“So much so that you’d do it twice. I always knew I held a special place in your heart, Sif.” Loki let Volstagg steer him after her with an arm around his shoulders, because it was the path of least resistance. Resistance meaning ouch. “Hullo, Heimdall. Long time no see.”

“Not really,” Heimdall replied mildly. “I watched you wash your hair.”

“You really need to stop reminding people you do that. It’s creepy. I love what you’ve done to this place, though.”

“Yes, there truly is a silver lining to everything.”

“Speaking of which.” Loki grinned and spread his arms to encompass all of them. “Asgard’s Yearly Well-Intentioned Treason Club, all together again. Once we’re all back from wherever we’re going, we should celebrate.”

“We’re not –” Fandral started with a frown.

“Where _is_ everyone going, anyway?” Thor quickly cut him off.

Sif held up a black and red stone. “The Aether. The Allfather – Allmother – your parents, think it best not to keep it too near the Tesseract, so they tasked us with finding a safe place to hide it.”

“And you know of such a place?” Thor said.

“We were thinking of giving it to the Collector to safeguard,” Volstagg said.

“What?!” Loki exclaimed. “No. Keep it far, far away from the Collector. Don’t you know he’s got Chitauri connections?”

Sif and Volstagg exchanged horrified glances.

“Since when?” Volstagg asked.

“Ever since the being that recruited _me_ to deliver the Tesseract started asking around about the Infinity Stones _everywhere_. You’d be better off planting that thing on a passing asteroid. You’d be better off flushing it down the toilet.”

“You couldn’t have warned us about this sooner?” Sif said indignantly.

“Nobody asked. I was in prison, supposedly not to see or speak to another living soul ever again. Funny how that works.”

“And I see that once again, nobody was planning to ask _me_ either,” Heimdall sighed. “Well, no matter. I know just the place to send it.”

“And I’ll be headed to Earth, if you will,” Thor said.

“And I to Vanaheim,” said Fandral. “Because as I was _trying_ to say, the club _isn’t_ all back together yet.”

Loki looked around. “Well I’ll be, I forgot all about Hogun. He’s on Vanaheim? Why?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

Thor frowned. “I told him he should be where his heart lies, so he stayed to spend time with his people.”

Everyone turned to stare at him.

“But he’s as Asgardian as any of us,” Sif said.

“A lot more so than _I_ am,” Loki said.

Thor frowned harder. “That’s odd. He said he’d barely seen his family since I was a child... and those villagers we saved at least _looked_ like they might have been his kin...”

“So do plenty of folks on Earth,” Fandral said. “Red-blooded phenotypes show up all over the place. Even in some folks who bleed anti-freeze.”

“Not when I _do_ bleed anti-freeze, they don’t,” Loki said, side-eying him.

“Well, you get the point.”

“I do. My brother’s been had by the most unlikely trickster of the lot of us. Good thing I was going to pick up Bjorn from Vanaheim anyway. I’ll accompany you.”

“Bjorn?” Thor asked.

“The Einherjar who found me on Svartalfheim and patched me up. He too seemed oddly happy to be going on holiday there, come to think of it. Dropping him off in exchange for his identity was the easiest bribe ever.”

 

Loki and Fandral arrived on Vanaheim to a village-wide party in full swing. Finding Hogun and Bjorn was easy; they were guests of honour in the newly rebuilt feasting hall.

They were also giggling like maniacs.

“Is that smell what I think it is?” Loki wondered aloud. Bjorn fell from his bean bag with a shriek.

“It would seem so,” Fandral answered, snatching a tobacco pipe from the low table and making Hogun look up.

“Damn,” Hogun said. And, clumsily grabbing his mace, “Which one of you turned coat this time?”

“I did,” Loki said, plopping down on Bjorn’s bean bag. “Back to your side, so no bludgeonings necessary.” He sized Hogun and Bjorn up for several long moments, then asked Bjorn point-blank: “You came here to renew your Vanir pipe weed trade agreements, didn’t you?”

“I thought you said no bludgeonings necessary,” Hogun said, eyeing him and Fandral both.

Bjorn, sprawled out on his back, opened and closed his mouth like a fish. “H – how – ?”

“Prison guards talk when they’re discontent, and by breaking the Bifrost and cutting off imports from Vanaheim I had made them quite discontent. Plus, you had guilt written all over your face.”

Hogun huffed and threw his mace down on the table. “You gonna turn him in? Just because Kvasir’s family bribes Odin into keeping Asgardian-made poetry mead the only legal non-alcoholic drug in the realm...”

Loki and Fandral exchanged glances.

“You know, I never liked poetry mead much,” Fandral said. “It gives me hangovers. _Hangovers!_ ”

“I don’t know what you’re afraid of, I couldn’t live with myself if I turned someone in for something like this,” Loki said, pulling up another bean bag for Bjorn. “And you, of all people! First you save my life, now you’re a benevolent criminal mastermind. Next you’ll be offering Fandral and I a pipe free of charge – for medicinal purposes, you understand. You did excellent work on the life-saving front, but I’m almost starting to regret choosing to keep your trip here a secret over seeing a proper healer for the pain...”

Bjorn immediately hailed a serving girl.


	5. Dead Serious I'm-Not-Even-Kidding Design Bonus

“I shall have the servants unearth the gowns I used to wear when the boys were too young to act as regent during Odinsleeps,” Frigga said over dinner, gauging Odin’s reaction. “I tire of this fluttery, asymmetric and overly patterned fashion, anyway. I don’t think I shall ever try it again. I miss being sleek and elegant and glam.”

“That’s what you said fifty years ago, dearest,” Odin said mildly.

Frigga laughed to herself. “And you couldn’t have reminded me of that last year?”

“I shall endeavour to be more vigilant next time.” Odin nodded and happily plopped a grape into his mouth. “You always looked stunningly regal in your regent robes, dearest.”

“I’m glad you approve. By the way, I feel now is a good time to mention I abhor what you did to the palace decor last year, and I’m changing it back to the way it was,” Frigga said.

Odin’s mouth fell open and the grape almost rolled right back out. He began to splutter indignant protests, but Frigga cut him off.

“We both know you only wanted everything so dark and primitive because murdering our youngest had depressed your spirits. Well, he’s no longer dead, nor out to cause an early Ragnarok or _looking_ like he is, thank the Nine, so the lot of us won’t be suffering your gloom any longer.”

“You can’t just make decisions of such magnitude without –”

Frigga jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Gungnir, standing behind and to the side of her chair. “I can, and I am. For goodness sake, Odin, this realm is a disc floating through space, encapsulated by an artificial ecosystem and housing a race that lives to be five thousand with the greatest of ease and forges weapons in the hearts of stars. Our ancestors built the very rock and crystal below our feet with magic and technology surpassing any that has been known in this universe in living memory. I will _not_ stand Asgard to look like we tore it out of the territory of a Medieval mortal lord by the roots, applied some gold leaf to the outer walls, and called it a day, never to make a single change to the original structures for fifteen thousand years.”

Odin shut his mouth with an audible click. “Yes, dearest.”

“Good.”

Odin finally chewed and swallowed his grape. “I think...” he started after a while.

Frigga looked up from her broiled gryphon, one eyebrow and both corners of her mouth quirked up.

Odin’s eye narrowed. “It’s a good thing you really are always right, or this always being right habit of yours would be insufferable.”

“I love you too, dearest.”

“I’m keeping the throne room, though.”

“You can keep the throne room, dearest. You can keep all seventeen of them.”


	6. Weird Worldbuilding Bonus

“Hey, Jane?”

“What, Darcy?” Jane mumbled into her soup.

“If the Nine Realms, capital ‘n’, capital ‘r’, are Asgard, Midgard, Vanaheim, Jotunheim, Alfheim –” Darcy’s forehead creased in concentration. “– Muspelheim, Niflheim, Nidavellir – or was it Svartalfheim? – and Hel... then what does that make Nornheim and Svartalfheim-or-Nidavellir and Badoon and, what was it, Ria? And the Chitauri homeworld and all those other inhabited places Asgard protects?

Like, when Thor talked about Badoon, he called it ‘the Badoon _worlds_ ’, plural, meaning he grouped a bunch of them together based on whatever those worlds have in common. And if he grouped a bunch of worlds together _once_ , it’s reasonable to assume he’d group a different bunch of worlds together too if there were similar cause to do it, which would make it not _un_ reasonable to assume that when he _didn’t_ bunch together all the other worlds he mentioned, that meant they really weren’t _supposed_ to be bunched together. Meaning there really are a lot more than nine realms out there as far as the Asgardians are concerned. So what’s up with the _Nine_ Realms thing? What makes those nine so special?

It can’t be a subcategory for allies or enemies or ignorant protectorates, because us, Vanaheim and Jotunheim are all part of the Nine Realms and that’s one each. It can’t be an indicator of military or political power, because then what the hell was tenth century Earth doing on the list? And it can’t be a way of referring to different _dimensions_ , because that makes no semantic sense and you crunched the numbers on the Bifrost activity and ruled that out anyway.

Is it an arbitrary distance thing, or are the Nine Realms the worlds located in our galaxy, and are all the others located in different ones? Is it a chronological order thing, where they came up with the name before they realised there’s a whole bunch more worlds out there? Oh! Or maybe nine is their lucky number so they stopped counting once they filled the quota?

Did the Vikings sign some kind of contract with the Asgardians, who didn’t think of the possibility that future generations or different parts of the world might not agree with that one group, because Asgard is like one city of people who live forever? There’s got to be some kind of historical or political explanation there. And how does the Convergence fit in with all of it? Inquiring minds want to know!”

Ian and Erik stared at Darcy, the latter with soup dribbling down his chin.

Jane burst into tears.

“Shit,” Darcy said.

Big, heaving sobs.

“Shit shit shit –”

“I wish I could ask him!” Jane cried, slamming her spoon down. “I wish they had some damn reception on Asgard! Last time he did this I looked and I waited for two years and he didn’t bother visiting or calling even when he _could_ , but then he came back and told me he loved me and we made out and he showed me space and protected me in life and death situations and –”

“Jane, honey, breathe,” Erik said faintly.

“– and the universe was ending and I helped save it and his mom and his brother died in front of us and I don’t know how to comfort him or if he even wants me to, and I love you guys but you’re _no_ help dealing with any of –”

Something like an explosion hit the balcony.

Darcy, Erik and Ian fell out of their chairs, shrieking. Jane’s head snapped up and she held the edge of the dining table in a death grip.

“Is that him?” she asked, wide-eyed and not daring to look over her shoulder. “That’s him, isn’t it?”

“Y - yeah,” Ian squeaked.

“You’re never getting rid of those Bifrost scorch marks,” Darcy deadpanned.

Jane whipped around, ejecting her chair across the room as she ejected herself out of it, and launched herself into Thor’s arms like the balcony door wasn’t even there.

A good ten minutes of face-smashing and other indescribable acts of star-crossed lovers reuniting later, she and Thor made it inside, beaming. He set Mjolnir down on the kitchen counter and spread his arms.

“My friends, I bear joyous tidings! My mother and brother live!”

“Shit,” Erik said.

Darcy kicked him under the table. “That’s – great, man. About your mom.”

“And the both of them and my father will be joining us here before the week is out –”

“ _Shit shit shit –_ ”

Ian looked like he might faint.

“– and Loki has had a haircut and intends to apologize and make reparations,” Thor finished, not unsympathetically.

That stopped Erik short. “Seriously?”

“Aye.”

“Just like that?”

“Well, like I said, he cut his hair.”

“That makes no sense,” Erik said.

“He looks like a Disney prince now, doesn’t he?” Jane asked flatly.

“Disney?”

“Handsome fairytale hero?”

“Yes! As it should be.”

“Shit,” Jane said.

Darcy was the only one who seemed to find that funny.


	7. Vitally Important Jane Bonus

Mjolnir _whooshed_ through the air up and down the indoor ski slope, followed by a window-rattling roar and the incongruously puppy-like alien behemoth it belonged to. Like the showman he was, Thor expertly manoeuvred his hammer for the entertainment of the creature and the small crowd of spectators gathered at the top of the slope. Thor, a delighted Frigga with her arm around his waist, and Odin, leaning on his shoulder from the force of his laughter, were surrounded by a gaggle of SHIELD agents ranging from visibly trigger-happy to childishly exited, which left Jane and Loki standing together off to the side much like they had during their first meeting.

Jane gestured towards the ice beast. “You wouldn’t happen to know what those animals are called, would you?”

“No. But I have found that no matter where you go and what they look like, one out of five domesticated creatures will answer to ‘Fluffy’.”

“Huh. I nicknamed it Lokibeast.”

Loki cocked his head. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted.”

“Since it came from Jotunheim and has the horns and wrecked everything in its path before we figured out how to make it happy, and stuff.”

“Leaning towards flattered, but not quite convinced yet. It’s rather repulsive-looking, don’t you think?”

Jane couldn’t help but study him from the corner of her eye. _Don’t you worry about_ that. Disney prince. She’d fucking called it.

“We hope we can train it to not go back to wrecking everything even if it’s not perfectly happy for a while,” she said instead.

Loki turned away from the frolicking monster to send her a knowing smirk.

She raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Think you can manage that?”

“I managed for a thousand years, Jane Foster. I don’t imagine it’ll be much harder now.”

“Once you went off the rails you did so pretty spectacularly, though.”

“I was trying to find out when the satisfaction of it would kick in. I learned from the experience and feel no need to repeat it.”

As far as explanations for cackling, cape-wearing supervillainy by a magic-using immortal alien shapeshifter from myth went, it sounded reasonable enough. Jane had given up on things that made sense in the general sense of the word ages ago. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“You don’t believe me,” Loki gasped, pressing his hand to his chest in mock outrage.

“Just don’t forget that I turned an Aethered-up dark elf into confetti using science and we’ll be fine.”

He returned her slight smile by grinning like the cat who got the cream, and nudged her. “Let’s be friends.”

Jane was so shocked she almost keeled over.

Loki took hold of her shoulders and gently pulled her into a more vertical position. “I mean it, let’s be friends. I like your bravery and your intellect. As well as whatever possessed you to punch me in the face the moment you first saw me.”

He sounded like he meant it, too. Weird guy.

“And your visage isn’t too hard on the eyes, either.”

“Woah woah, down, boy. If this is going to turn into you trying to seduce me to get back at Thor one last time, stop right there,” Jane said, her hands raised deflectively, though she could barely hold back her laughter. “I just made out with your _brother_ like an hour ago. I’ve got his cooties all over me. Think about that. Is bloodless revenge really worth it? _Is it?_ ”

“Oh, lady Jane,” Loki said with an effortlessly charming smile, and demonstratively clasped his hands behind his back. “If I were to seduce you, Thor would be the _last_ reason for it, and his ‘cooties’ might just be worth it. But let’s just start with being friends. Has anyone composed a saga in your honour yet?”

That threw Jane for a loop all over again, though not unpleasantly. “Uh... I might be getting a medal? There isn’t really a procedure for this kinda thing. The UN and SHIELD are still corroborating our data at the moment. The Convergence blew the world’s collective minds pretty badly.”

“Oh, that just won’t do. Your deeds should be sung for eternity!” Loki said. “And I’m not _just_ saying that because those songs would tell of my own journey as well.”

Loki hooked his arm in hers and steered her away from the suddenly noisy SHIELD agents. Lokibeast had stopped chasing Mjolnir in favour of a long, messy drought from its kiddie pool of antifreeze and then dropped onto its side with the air of a contentedly purring cat, and one young scientist had crept down the slope to pet it like one. Thor had another young scientist caught around the waist and was trying to tell him something about not startling the beast by storming up to it shouting at the top of one’s lungs, but it was hard to follow over the boy’s cries of “JEMMA! JEMMA FOR GOD’S SAKE, REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED THE LAST TIME YOU TOUCHED UNTESTED ALIEN STUFF!”

“Your magic, primitive as it was, was key to saving the universe. Sometimes the most unassuming solution can be the most effective. I like that.”

Jane hoped her face wasn’t as red as it felt. “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment?” she all but giggled.

“Oh, you _should_. I admit I’m a bit rusty when it comes to honest, unambiguous compliments, but I’m fairly sure I’m buttering you up like freshly toasted bread here.”

“Well, feel free to keep it up.”

“Butter butter. Butter butter.”

Jane grinned. “I changed my mind, you can stop.”

“Butter butter butter.”

“ _Stop._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments on older fics will ALWAYS remain welcome.


End file.
